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“The Lady of Light shall be your salvation, Sauron, and your undoing.”

The words struck him, a promise, a threat, and vague either way. “Cryptic, as ever, Melian.”

She floated between the trees as did that strange people of hers, the ones the lords of Dorthonion called heretics and witches. “I traffic not in tales spun to entertain mortals,” she said pointedly, “but in truth and in time, as you once did.”

“Torn asunder, have I been, my soul rent from my timeless existence.” He felt fury rise like a fire in his chest, but he contained it. It would do him no good with her. “I need not tell you that, witch. You conspired with our brother to do it.”

“You needed to be balanced.”

“You abuse the power given to you by Eru.”

“It was His song on my lips when I bound your soul to the Sword of Kings, and it is His song I sing to you now. You would be wise to heed my counsel.”

“I am not altogether certain I know what it is.”

“The time is coming, Sauron. Whispers of foul things abound, and the Sword has revealed itself. It will answer only to Arda’s true ruler.”

That was meant to be him, but he was like a kneecapped stallion, the full breadth of his power taken from him.

“This Lady of Light? Is she to be the keeper of my immortal soul?” Scorn dripped from his lips, bitter, like honey gone rancid.

“She is your salvation and your undoing.”

“Is she to be Arda’s true ruler?”

“She is to be your balance.”

Did that mean she would free his soul? Was he finally to be free, to be whole? Was it now finally time to claim his destiny, king of these lands, a glorious image revealed to him at the very beginning of time itself?

Melian, of course, would be no further help to him. Sometimes he wondered if she took great joy in leaving his questions unanswered, in being frustratingly unclear just to spite him. There had been that whole thing with Lúthien, but her daughter had come to minimal harm in the end and she was overreacting, in his opinion, though she swore she was only serving the Song. It mattered little. She was gone before she could bestow a blessing or another curse, and it seemed he had little choice. He would have to bring the Lady of Light to power. His salvation and his undoing. He could hardly stand to let the centuries pass by any longer absent of his true purpose. Even if she would be the end of him, she would help him ascend to great heights, to take his true and rightful place in this world. And perhaps his end was not set in stone. He knew better than most the power of words when it came to prophecy. Carefully crafted and never so clear as to give one a sense of anything other than vague doom or hope. 

He would be the master of his own destiny, and he would wield the Lady of Light like the Sword of Kings, his sword, even if she held the relic in her hands. 

He left her sister and her cryptic words of wisdom, but not before the fire he’d contained scorched her precious woodland realm.

He had work to do. 

Two hundred years later

Her mother had tried for years, but Galadriel was made to run free with her brothers, to hunt, to swing a sword and string a bow. Put down your sword had been as much a refrain as the one she sung now, her head bowed, the words echoing against the cathedral’s stone walls.

She turned her head to the side at the feel of fingers tugging at her hair, loose because she hadn’t had time to bind it up. Finrod, her eldest brother, held a leaf in his hand, one that must have gotten tangled in her hair as she rode through the woods. “Lose your footing again, Galadriel?” he whispered as the final prayer began. It was a refrain as common as the one of which she had just sung the final note, his way of pointing out that she was deviating from the carefully choreographed dance that was expected of her. He never seemed disappointed, though. Her mother had always said he was enabling her, but she’d always seen him as her truest support, and he saw her as she truly was. 

“I was merely—”

The sound of a throat clearing stilled her words. Even seated he was tall, his silhouette casting a long shadow in her peripheral, hair like a muted bloody sunrise falling to his shoulders, the beginnings of a beard darkening the harshness of his jaw. Seated ever at her father’s right hand.

It was said that the sorcerer Sauron was as old as the bones of the earth, that he had been awake since the breaking of the first silence. It was also said that he made kings of men, and though he served them, it seemed as ever he was serving himself. So naturally she was wary of him and more so knowing that rival houses clamored ever to unseat her father, the king amid a rising tide of darkness.

She ducked her head so as not to meet his eyes should he turn, like crystalline amber, always seeing too much. It was hardly avoidant, outwardly—the bishop waxed on prayerfully still—but it was difficult to forget the words he had spoken to her of late, some ill-fated prophecy that tugged at her innermost desires. It seemed the world was his to promise if history was anything to go by, and what he promised her…

“Amen.” It echoed like a chorus among those gathered, as his words spoken by the moonlight did in her mind.

***

“The Prince of Doriath shall be happy to see you at the fête, I should think.” Finrod strolled beside her, the crisp autumn air tasting like freedom to her tongue. She was soon to go back to her cage, trapped in a great hall with nobles and dignitaries drunk on mead and dancing until the sun renewed its chase of the moon.. 

“The Prince of Doriath can get lost in the depths of Nan Dungortheb for all I care.” The power of the druid Melian was great and terrible there, held back by some dark sorcery of Sauron’s. It was a place of nightmares; the lake it held was clear as crystal and yet no depth could be seen in it.

“Galadriel.”

“Not to worry, brother. I shall eschew such remarks this night and be the very image of a demure princess.”  

“Not too demure,” Finrod said, his shoulder knocking hers, “or we shall hardly have any fun.”

He slowed his pace, knowing she was in no hurry to return and it was in moments like these that she particularly dreaded her fate, marrying some some prince that would take her away from home and her family, a prince who would cage her like a bird, made ever to sit pretty and sing songs for his entertainment.

***

She sat up straighter, feeling the weight of her father’s eyes upon her, foot tapping with annoyed impatience beneath the table. Aegnor and Angrod had refilled their goblets thrice over, but she was allowed only one small chalice of wine because she was meant to be on her best behavior for Prince Celeborn of Doriath who was looking awfully standoffish from his place down the table. He wasn’t a particularly interesting man, from what she’d gathered of him, though he certainly sent many gifts—jewelry with precious stones from the mines of Menegroth and seedlings of flowering trees from Doriath’s woods for her gardens. He gave good gifts, she would give him that, even if she would have preferred one of those gold and silver filigreed daggers that hung on the belts of his guards. He gave good gifts, but that did not mean she wanted to marry him, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life hidden beneath the trees of Doriath. 

Sauron was blessedly and conspicuously absent from the festivities, so it fell to her brother to give her a knowing look, though Finrod’s at least contained some measure of sympathy. Sauron was mostly unreadable and entirely unsettling. 

Yes, she was very glad for his absence, she decided, drinking the last of her wine when she saw Prince Celeborn approaching, hand outheld in a question that seemed prescient of another she would be forced to answer in the affirmative. 

She took his hand, smiling coyly, her skirts shuffling around her as she moved with him to the floor. He was handsome enough; he certainly made her handmaidens swoon when they delivered his gifts. He was everything a prince should be and yet her heart longed for something wilder, some untamed fire, powerful by virtue of its very nature. 

She drew her eyes away from the door, annoyed to have found herself watching, as though looking for someone. It was then, when her eyes fell back upon the prince, that chaos descended violently upon the great hall, wooden doors splintering as they were forced open. One moment she was forcing a droll smile upon the prince of Doriath, doing her best not to shrink away from his touch, the next, blood splattered across her face. The impact of the axe thrown at her dance partner reverberated through her chest and she fell with the force of his lifeless body finding the ground, his arms still wound around her. 

Fear and fury in equal parts crept up her spine and she thanked Eru for the dagger in her boot, the one Finrod had given her many name days ago. She reached it just in time to plunge it into the neck of the monstrous soldier crouching over Celeborn’s body with a bloodthirsty gleam in eyes pitch as night. She twisted the blade, black blood pouring out when she removed it, struggling beneath the weight of two bodies now. She needed to get out of here. She needed to find her father, find Finrod. Her cries were drowned out by screams and cleaving of flesh, the strings having ceased, the minstrels slumped over their instruments. Rolling from beneath the bodies, she saw the guards rallying at the doors, but as her gaze moved wildly about the room, she knew it was too late. 

It was too late. 

Upon the dais, her father was pierced through with black arrows, bound to his throne in death. 

No.  

She ripped the axe from the prince’s back, swinging wildly at an invader with dark armor, screaming with fury as she buried the blade in his neck. Soldiers closing in, she tried to wrench the weapon from flesh and bone but it did not budge. She pulled desperately. Her dagger would do little against broadswords and spears. She was going to die.

A voice thundered and the hall was plunged into darkness.

“Leave it,” the voice said, echoing only in her ear, and a grip like a manacle fastened on her wrist, dragging her away from the violence. 

He had a glaive in one hand, taken from a fallen guard at the door, darkness spilling forth like a heavy mist from the other.

“My brother!”

“He’s dead. They all are, and you will be too if you don’t come with me right now.”

She pulled against his grip, finding it immovable, but still she resisted. “I will not flee like a coward!”

“You are all that remains of your father’s House, my lady.” He lifted the tapestry covering the opening in stone from which he had entered, a dark mist still shrouding them from the chaos of the hall. “It is your duty to flee. Your people will need you if they survive the night.”

It was enough to loosen her feet from where they were planted, though many questions screamed for answers inside her. As he dragged her through the tunnels toward the south wood, she felt as though her mind was battling to catch up to her pounding heart and that it would never gain the victory. 

It was a relief to fall into the night, because there at least she escaped the true darkness that seemed to wrap itself around Sauron like a cloak. Trusting her to walk on her own two feet, he let loose her arm, leading her through the trees. She was not well equipped for a run in her dancing slippers and ridiculous skirts, but he did not slow his pace. 

For miles they ran, nothing but harsh panting breath between them—hers; he seemed tireless. The nightingales were silent, as if they knew the horrors of this night, the cruel and crass cries of crows echoing among the twisted trees as they passed through the foothills of Ered Gorgoroth. 

He stopped only when they came upon the mountain pass, bidding her follow him into darkness hidden in stone. She had little choice but to follow, her breath coming out hard, her sleeves ripped and offering little warmth against the chill of the night wind. And these were wild lands. She would have to take her chances. She would have to trust him. 

Fire roared to life in the cave and any thought she had of wandering on alone was put to death by the heat that rolled toward her. She came closer, letting out a long sigh as her breath returned to her, warmth spreading to her bones. Though now that she could breath, now that she was no longer fleeing for her life, a chill set in, one no fire could vanquish. 

Her father was dead. Angrod and Aegnor. Finrod. She was the last of her house, but she would never be able to take up her father’s crown.

“You need not marry a king to be a queen,” he said, as though he knew the very bent of her thoughts. No condolences, just counsel, cryptic and unwelcome.

“The laws of succession say otherwise.” She sat herself down by the fire, very aware of how close he was in the dark. “Which I assumed you would know, given you were there when they were written.”

“I am very aware of the words,” he said, and the flames seemed to dance with his every breath. “I wrote them myself.”

It was in moments like this that she remembered best his agelessness, the way he so casually spoke of his influence in the events of her history, the history of the world. What were death and grief to him, then, but as normal and as inevitable as breathing?

“My family is dead and you would speak to me of succession?”

“The one necessitates the other, Galadriel, and while I am sorry for the loss you have suffered, for your brother—” something like pity passed across his face “—we must think of the good of Ard-galen.”

“It is for the good of Ard-galen that you lead me into the wasteland?” She tucked her arms over her chest. “What safety will I find there? What army?”

“You are safe with me,” he said, and it was hard to decide if she believed him. Hard to decide what motive he had in all this, what aim he was serving. 

“The Sword of Kings has revealed itself,” he said after a long moment, answering her unasked question.

She huddled before the flames. “And what interest would that be to a princess in hiding?”

“Take up Narsil, prove that you are their rightful queen.” 

It wasn’t the fire reflected in his eyes, but an intensity they supplied on their own, one that was growing as he advised her against her late father and king’s wishes.

“Long have I been told to put down my sword.”

“I know you, Galadriel,” he said with conviction. “I know the desires of your heart as if they had been sung from my very soul.”

She remembered stories whispered in the dark among children, words scribbled in hidden volumes from the castle’s library. “The legends say you do not have a soul.”

He leaned forward, towering over her, but she only met his eye, holding her chin high. “A funny story, that. One in which you have become the chief protagonist.”

“Me?”

“My soul is bound to that Sword, a Sword which no man has yet been able to claim.”

His head nearly ached for the strength with which she rolled her eyes. “So, because I am a woman—” 

“Because you possess a strength, a light that rivals the very fire of Eru, I believe the Sword will find you worthy.”

“And I shall free your soul, is that it?”

“In exchange for a kingdom?” He twisted the ring on his finger. “It seems a fair price.”

She wrung her hands together, bringing warmth back to her fingertips. Was the cost of the power he offered too great? Surely his soul had been bound for a reason. And if the Sword answered to her, would that which was bound to it heed her call as well? The power of a king and an immortal in her grasp…

“You would serve me?”

Eyes like honey from the woodland combs dripped over her until they held her gaze. “On my knees until time itself came to an end.” 

She didn’t know if she believed him, or if she liked the suggestion in his voice, inching back from the fire when she started to get a little too warm. She cleared her throat. “I only ask for the days of my life.”

He leaned back on his hands. “Should you take the Sword as your own, they would be one and the same.”

Immortal? Queen forever? 

Was this not what she had longed for in the deepest places of her heart? To be free, truly free to know the wonders of this wide, wild world? To rule it? 

“You know where the Sword lies?” She studied him, carefully, looking for hints of deceit. She found none, just his lips ticking up in the corner with something like amusement at her perusal. She supposed it was a bit like an ant sizing up Eru to his mind. Unfathomable it was to her that she might soon come to think in such a way. A terrifying and exhilarating thought.

“In the heart of Nan Dungortheb.”

The dread wilderness, home to the things of nightmares. It had once been a flourishing forest. Now the trunks were gnarled and twisted and bare, some strange sorcery set upon it. His, in part. A defense against the magic of Melian, or so the stories said. She wondered if that was the truth of it. She wondered if he would tell her otherwise.

Either she would be safe at his side as he led her into the dark or he meant to lead her to her doom. She supposed she wouldn’t know until felt the cool caress of the darkness on her face as she faced down the dreadful valley.

She shivered at the very thought of it. 

Standing, he removed the heavy cloak from his back, setting it around her shoulders as he sat closer to the mouth of the cave. “Rest, if you can. It is a long few days ahead of us. I’ll keep watch.”

She’d trusted him this far. Wrapping herself in his cloak, she put her back to stone, the warmth of the fire near enough that she could drift into sleep should she close her eyes. They slowly fluttered shut, for though she was weary, she was wary. Tucking his cloak tighter, she breathed of smoke and wild herbs, remembering the bunches of rosemary and sage that hung in front of tinctures in glass jars in the apothecary’s room. He’d shared centuries worth of knowledge with the healers, and often he could be found among them, though her brothers had always said it was because he was mixing up potions and poisons. Years later and she still did not know if his was the hand to heal or to poison in the night. 

Such a quandary was the last thing she remembered before sleep took her, and when her eyes cracked open, dawn peered through the mouth of the cave. He looked down at her, a handful of berries and wild nuts in his hand, an offering. She took it greedily, her stomach rumbling as she sat up, but then a thought strayed into her mind, the one that had troubled her before she’d found sleep. She looked at the scavenged food in her hand, then at him.

“They’re not poisonous.”

All the encouragement she needed, she bit into a berry, nearly moaning at the balance of tart and sweet. 

“Not for sorcerers, anyway,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips. 

With narrowed eyes she looked up at him, assuming he was teasing since she was not actively dying. 

“We’ll leave when you finish those.”

She felt compelled to eat slowly, far from eager for the day of travelling that lay ahead. But she was less eager to walk the wasteland by night, so she tossed back the rest of her breakfast, tying his cloak around her shoulders while he put out the last embers of the fire. 

He kept his pace quick and his words few, and as the sun found its place of prominence, they came upon the wild of Nan Dungortheb. 

“Is it true the druids once lived in this place?”

“Once,” he replied, holding a branch back for her. “They have lived for many years now in Nan Elmoth at the mercy of Doriath’s king.” Celeborn’s father. She would have to inform him of his son’s death, if she made it out alive. “Melian alone remains, but you will not see her unless she wishes to be seen.”

“And the lake?”

He gave her a strange look. “That’s not on your maps.”

He would know. He’d surely drawn them himself.

She kept her eyes to the ground, but it seemed dangers abounded all around.

“Is that what you’re always doing in the library, hunting down secrets lost to time?”

So she hadn’t imagined his eyes, always on her.

“I’m sure many of them are your own.”

He laughed. “Part and parcel of living so long as I have, my lady. Something you will find out for yourself soon enough.”

They walked on in silence, moments, maybe hours. Time seemed to stand still, the sun but a memory as they waded further into the dark. Her feet ached, and they ached for many winding miles more until he decided they had walked enough.

He did not light a fire, to avoid drawing the wolves in, he said. They rested in what once must have been a lovely grove of trees, trunks now little more than hollowed husks. 

“Tell me of your people,” she said when silence had stretched too long between them. 

He studied her, expressionless. “I belong to no one.”

Perhaps only to time itself. He had lived many lives, had name names. She wondered what meaning he’d found in that. It had been her family that lent meaning to her days, and now…

“You must have, once.”

Still he studied her, leaning back against a lifeless trunk that should not have supported his weight. “Men have always feared magic,” he said, finally. “But more than that, they fear what they cannot control. I sought to ease their minds by giving them control over that which they feared, and for that, I was cursed. Diminished. By those you would call my people.”

There was no small amount of bitterness in his words.

“You’re a druid?”

Her father hadn’t been the most tolerant of the abominable heretics, as he’d called them. Certainly not as tolerant as they were in Doriath.

The bitterness from his tongue twisted his lips into some strange condescending smile. “I am much more than Melian’s little woodland experiment, but yes, I have known that witch since the first song made itself known to the silence.” 

It was difficult to fathom, a life that felt more like a legend. Many of his lives were written into legend, she supposed, and many legends had he made of others throughout the years. And now he planned to make some sort of legend out of her.

He stood, as if struck by some awareness. “We should walk on. The sun doesn’t shine here, not anymore. We’ll not find the safety of daylight here and we have little time to waste.”

She wanted to protest. With every aching muscle and weary limb she wanted to protest, but the longer she rested, the longer chaos would hold Ard-galen. And in the chaos, would not her enemies seek to take her father’s throne and lands? Would her people not suffer?

She walked on, following him through the darkness. In silence they walked, and a few hours she knew reprieve from his cryptic remarks, but her curiosity won out over her need for rest, and she asked him, “what do you plan to do?” 

He stopped. “You shall need to be more specific, Galadriel. I have many plans.”

That sat ill with her for some reason she had no hope of explaining. “Once I have retrieved this sword—”

“Narsil,” he interjected, turning to her.

“Yes. Once I have Narsil in my possession, what will you do?”

“I will make you a queen, Galadriel.” He stepped closer. “My power will be bound to you.”

And hers to him. Was that not just trading one cage for another, even if she held his soul in her very hands?

“You promise me eternity, but is being bound to your power endlessly any better than living and dying in a cage of some man’s making?” 

“I told you that I would make you a queen.” A long finger ran the line of her jaw, curling underneath her chin and tilting it up until she held his gaze. “Fairer than the sea and the sun.  Treacherous as the dawn. Stronger than the foundations of the earth.” She remembered those words he had spoken to the night, that hungry look in his eyes beneath the fullness of the moon in Ard-galen. Now, his eyes were admiring and hungry in a way that felt more than carnal. That same hunger rose like a weed up her spine. It was power, she realized, that need in her, terrifying and exhilarating. As necessary as breathing. The breath that sustained them both. He leaned in, his words a promise and a prophecy. “All will love you and despair, Galadriel.”

She let out a shuddering breath, at his words or his proximity it was difficult to be certain. He had always had an effect on her, but this close, speaking the very hidden desires of her heart, bringing the darkness within her to the light…

“You would make me a tyrant.”

“I would make you a queen,” he repeated, his hand falling to her shoulder, a gesture which had  probably felt more fraternal when it was her father he had been advising. “No more than you deserve by virtues imbued upon you by birth and those far more intrinsic than even blood.” His fingers moved through her hair, luxuriating in its length before sweeping it over her shoulder. It was as though it held the very light of life itself, the way wonder lit his eyes for but a moment. That one who had seen all the ages of this world could look upon her the way he did…she tried not to let it make her feel self-important. She tried to tell herself it was the power that sparked the fire in his eyes like that, the power that he stood to gain using her as a pawn. 

“And you, my king?”

“You need me.”

He seemed so certain of that. 

He was probably right. 

She had no one else. 

“Bind yourself to my power, Galadriel. Take from the world everything that should have been given to you, and then bless it with your benevolence.”

“And you?” She held his eyes. “Will you bind yourself to me?”

He held her hand between his, something at once tender and desperate about the touch. “You are to be my salvation, my lady of light.” His eyes were soft in a way she had never seen them, warm like honey. “Together we can bring light to the dark places of this world. Drive the fear out of men’s hearts so that all the ages and peoples of this world might know peace. This has been my purpose from the beginning, but I have not been able to accomplish it without you.” There was something sincere as honey darkened to amber in his eyes. “Will you let me help you?”

If she looked back on this choice thousands of years from now, it was that moment that tipped the scales for her. He wanted to help her, not to cage her. He saw her fullest potential and he would help her achieve it. By his power and her own. 

“Take me to the Sword.”

***

They walked with purpose and with urgency through the darkness until they came upon the lake. The lake that should not have existed, the one that was present on none of their maps. It was encompassed by tangled and broken trees, what must look like a crown of thorns to the eyes of what birds dared fly above. By the shore there was a stone, as clear as the water’s surface breaking upon it, and encased in that clear stone was a sword. She could see the length of it, see the runes carved in along its blade. The words danced in white fire when she wrapped her fingers around the hilt. Her blood sang with something ancient, something that confirmed for her every word that Sauron had spoken. This power was meant to be hers. His power was meant to be hers. 

She gave a hard tug, the air around them stifling in a way it shouldn’t have been around cool waters. The blade kept its place in the stone. 

She felt her certainty crumble when she tried again and failed, her hands falling to her side. “I am not strong enough.”

She had never been enough. Not for her mother. Not for her father.

“Men stronger than you have tried, Galadriel. For centuries, they have tried. But the Sword answers only to the One who has been foretold.” He looked down at her intently, setting her hands back upon the pommel. “The Lady of Light.” His hands tightened around hers. “She is fierce, but it is not strength of arms alone that will win her the world.” He stepped back, the surety of his gaze speaking of his faith in her. “It is not strength that overcomes darkness, my lady.” He looked to the dark skies above, the darkness reflected upon the water and lurking beneath its surface. Then his gaze fell heavily, wondrously hopeful upon her and he said, “it is light.”

She was determined now, certain that she could be that which was foretold. This was her purpose, the one her beloved brother had done what he could to encourage. This was the song her soul was always meant to sing. A song that would bring the world to its knees, a refrain that would echo in the wind and waves, through tree and stone. A power that would shake the hold of darkness, one that would bring true and lasting peace. A song that was stronger for the unison of another voice, enhanced by the harmony he crafted. 

This Sword belonged to her, and though he said he belonged to no one, so did he. 

***

Birds stirred and fled from bare branches above as she bid the Sword follow her will. 

The smallest amount of movement.

Dreadful and terrible as the dawn upon the darkness would she be.

The very ground shook, sending ripples through the water’s surface and he felt a great, familiar darkness approaching.

“The Sword, Galadriel.”

She struggled once more with the pommel. “I need a moment.”

The sounds of breaking branches and thunderous steps lit his ears, drawing nearer with every breath. “You do not have one. Draw the Sword or it is Death for us both.”

Of varying degrees of permanence for the two of them, but what time was there for splitting hairs when an army of orcs closed in around them?

Snarling and growling melded to his senses like the stench of death and he could see the black depths of the creatures’ eyes, but it was the song of power that struck him like a blow, twinkling sparking like metal scraping stone, and with a flourish, Galadriel turned the glowing white blade upon the horde of orcs. It was the lone bit of light in the darkness, but their movements ceased, as though they were arrested by its very power. It was a power that grew and pulsed in the air around them, the light spreading until the darkness was broken, lifeless trees glowing with golden leaves, flaming like the sun itself, reflecting the light of its queen. For she was radiant, bearing that blade, wielding the light like the very fire of Eru, and the darkness despaired in her presence; it had no choice but to flee. 

His salvation, at long last.

***

They took Ard-galen. They took all of Beleriand, the Lady of Light and Mairon the Admirable, the Excellent, her king. 

For centuries, the world knew peace. 

But then dark purpose tempted Sauron’s soul once more, and even power and love such as he had did not satisfy the longings of his heart. The Sword was lost. She tore his soul from him when she gave that Sword over to the Lord of Waters, one of his kind who had conspired with Melian an age ago against him, one who had taught his lady to harness the tempest within.

It had broken him, to lose his soul all those centuries ago. He had known peace for many years, his soul bound to her, and when she wrenched it from him once more, his heart she took also.

His heart and his hope. 

His salvation and his undoing, his Lady of Light.

But, remembering those words of Melian’s, he had bound his power, his very heart and soul, when he’d had it, into a token. A great Ring. A tool with which to shape the world to his purpose, to get back the kingdom he’d lost. No sword or king could stand against him, even cursed as he was.

And what could the Lady of Light do? She was forgotten to history as little more than a story he told to kings among men of a witch in the woods. As was the Sword she had once wielded, until one day a sea captain landed upon Middle-earth’s western shores. A sea captain who became a mighty king, one who cut down the dark armies with a sword they called the White Flame.

The Sword cut the Ring from his hand, his heart and his soul truly lost to him.

There was nothing but power now, but had that not been his purpose all along?

Sometimes, before he could catch himself, he would think of her, of that light in the darkness.

He knew nothing but darkness now, and her light was as much a curse to him as he had become to the world. Once, she had been his salvation, the Lady of Light. Now, centuries later, the seeds she had planted proved his undoing.

Hers was an impact he could trace through time because her light lived on in the hearts of men and they did not fear the darkness. And if they did not fear the darkness, what need was there for him?

Being purposeless, without heart or soul, he was undone.